One of my big hobbies of late has been cooking and (especially) baking. Blame it on the Food Network. One episode of Ace of Cakes and I think I'm Jean-Georges.
I'm entertaining the thought of starting a blog about it (imagine! A blog with an actual theme!!), but have decided to test the waters here before I have my name attached to another inactive internet entity.
The goal in tonights kitchen: Banana Nut Bread
My mother, who never cooks, had this sitting in our kitchen a few years ago and I was amazed. I pilfered the recipe and have only attempted it once before. As I recall it came out ok - but not as moist and banana-y as her version. The trick, she says, is using extra ripe (nearly bad) bananas. The kind that smell really fragrant even with the peels on and, in my case, attract a hoard of fruit flies into the kitchen.
Please see exhibit one - Recipe and Extra Stinky Bananas:
To get started, you combine 1/3 cup oil (or if you're Southern, shortening) and 1/2 cup sugar in a mixing bowl. Add 2 eggs.
In a seperate bowl, combine all dry ingredients: 1 + 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 TSP baking soda, and 1/2 TSP salt. I have to say I totally dumped a full teaspoon of baking soda in initially because I thought the recipe said 2. Woops. I scooped a little out, did the correct amount of salt, and hoped for the best. EEP!
Here's what things looked like at this stage:
Next, you smoosh up one cup of the ripe banana. I actually used 3 whole bananas because I wanted rid of them and I think it may have been a bit too much. This is one of the great hazards of getting all your cooking skills from a Grandmother who lived through the Depression.
Gradually combine all three sets of prepared ingredients and mix.
The bread is SUPPOSED to go into a 350 degree oven for 45-50 minutes. And here's where the catastrophe's happened.
I have a crappy, urban apartment dwellers oven and it doesn't always bake uniformly. I try to stick to the top rack when possible because that has proven the best method of not burning things. I went to check on the banana bread around the 35 minute mark and things were progressing nicely. It was obviously still a bit jiggly in the center, so I threw it back in to finish up. When I checked back around 10 minutes later, the dough had risen well above the pan and was scraping the top of my oven. AHHH!!!
After carefully cleaning the dough bits away with my pot holder, I put the bread back in on the lower rack. It ultimately took something closer to an hour for the bread to be cooked through. I think this may have had something to do with the extra banana I used. Thoughts, experts???
Here's what came out in the end:
Despite a couple of setbacks during baking, I think it turned out pretty well. Next time I think I would stick to the 1 cup of banana limit and maybe put my upper baking rack lower in the oven to give it clearance.
So there you have it!! The true hONEy and Martha Stewart idolizer extraordinaire. Hope it's not too big a let down. :)
I'm off to the NYC Food & Wine festival now, so perhaps I'll have some tricks to share next time. If not, I'm bound to have a new gadget.
